Brewer Works to Bring Back Dixie Beer

[Omaha Steve]

Why I posted in Political. Why didn't they get a huge government subsidy after Katrina to start up jobs?

http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=ap-d8t094ig0&

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The old brick building where Dixie Beer was brewed before Hurricane Katrina is vacant. More than two years after the storm flooded it and looters devastated it, the building with its looming tower and ornate iron gates is gutted and surrounded by padlocked fences.

But a century after its founding, the beer is coming back, say Joe and Kendra Bruno, who've struggled to keep the brewery going since buying it in 1986.

"We've worked too hard to give up now," said Joe Bruno. "Dixie is fine, a lot of people want it back on the shelves and so do we."

Beer industry pundits seem lukewarm on the brewery's prospects. After all, Katrina was one of a series of disasters befell Dixie down since founder Valentine Merz started production of the pale amber brew on Halloween 1907.

Of the 13 beers that were once brewed in New Orleans, only Dixie Brewing Co. was left by the early 1980s. With microbreweries the rage, and the national market dominated by heavyweights like Miller Brewing Co. and Anheuser-Busch Cos., Dixie became the last major independent brewer in the Deep South.

Once the city's favorite beer — living up to the slogan, "Around here it's Dixie Beer" — demand fell in 1975 after fumes from a chemical used to clean floors tainted the beer's flavor. The bad batch haunted Dixie's reputation long after the brew was back to normal.

FULL story at link.